ONE DELIBERATE ACT

In this third installment of an espionage series, an American intelligence operative, looking into a friend’s suspicious death, ends up enmeshed in a heinous international plot.

Spy Cat Powell has always felt there was something more to her best friend’s fatal accident four years ago. Maggie Marshfield’s final email to her pal referenced a mysterious guy with no further details. Things change when Cat’s sister finds Maggie’s hidden SD card. One photograph sends Cat to Sarajevo, where Maggie vacationed, to identify an unknown man—likely the guy in question. It turns out that he has ties to criminal acts that Cat, who co-leads a “multi-agency team,” struggles to expose. A flashback takes readers back decades to when Zlatan Terzić left Yugoslavia for America. By the 1990s, he had become a CIA asset; it was not entirely by choice, as the agency indirectly threatened his family in Sarajevo. His covert work took him to such places as London, Paris, and Germany—and to Maggie as well. But one of his decisions had disastrous, long-lasting consequences. In the present day, Cat hunts those behind Maggie’s death and a host of other sordid deeds, including both attempted and successful assassinations. Reynolds sets a measured pace that benefits her lengthy novel. She gradually introduces the cast as the story smoothly transitions between characters, years, and countries. As in preceding books, Cat is an indelible and capable hero. But supporting players also shine; Maggie is particularly appealing, while readers may hesitate to label sympathetic Zlatan a villain. Despite hints of action in the tale, the author tends to focus on the espionage side, such as hackers peeking through backdoors and Cat eluding a tail. This gripping, well-written narrative drops in a handful of surprises, like unexpected deaths, and culminates in a denouement both gratifying and realistic.

A stellar cast gives this spy thriller gusto and panache.